Wandering for the Moon
by StoriesFromDust
Summary: - Nicole had made a terrible assumption that the natural state of any young lady was memorizing trees and stones and forest pathways -
1. Eevee

**Chapter One**

 **Eevee**

Danni had two options and of those, she chose to break the law. She had never broken a law before. Once, a year ago, she had skirted the edge of legality and felt so strong for it. Surely that was the worst thing anyone could really reasonably think of doing and still consider themselves a good person. Surely, when it came right down to it, the law was the law and you knew when you were on the wrong side of it.

That morning, after a full week of panic, Danni approached a red door in the side of a small, white, two story home. A thin window to the right of the door displayed the "Open" sign. With a quick intake of breath Danni hesitated at the threshold. A soft wheeze escaped Kitkat's nose, urging her forward. She hugged her Eevee closer, and scratched behind her ears. "We'll get you all better, don't worry."

A small waiting room greeted her. Two chairs sat unoccupied to her right, and a receptionist's window has been placed off center in the back wall. Through the receptionist's window Danni could see books and papers in precarious stacks. There did not appear to be anyone present, but as Danni approached the window she became aware of motion inside. There was a girl hidden among the paperwork, engrossed in a book. A fresh wave of apprehension washed over Danni and she thought for a split second about leaving. She stopped that line of thought when Kitkat wheezed faintly yet again.

"Miss? Is Dr. Joy in?" Danni said, trying to get the girl's attention as sweetly as possible. The girl looked up from her book, first to Danni, then to Kitkat. The girl's dark suntanned skin was out of place in an office (she was surely the child of a Ranger? Or a field hand?) It matched poorly with her short sandy hair. If she had walked right off the page of a yellowed newspaper Danni would not have been surprised.

"She is out on a call, what do you need?"

Danni frowned, searching the girl and her desk for a name-tag. Finding nothing, Danni leaned hard on a sweet tone "My Eevee is sick. Her name is Kitkat."

The girl let out a short sigh, "My mom does not treat Pokemon."

Danni knew well enough that the village doctor, Miranda Joy, had a strict 'humans only' policy, she didn't need to be told again. "I am aware, I'm sorry, I need her to make an exception." Danni said, "This is an urgent case."

"An exception?" The girl let out a short, quick laugh.

"I can pay extra."

"There's nothing my mom can do." The girl closed her book carefully.

"Please, I don't know what to do anymore. Can't you convince her? Can't she make an exception?" Danni could feel the tears starting in the corners of her eyes. It had taken so much just to come here, just to risk that much. Kitkat wheezed in Danni's arms, a soft sickly moan followed and hung in the silence.

"What is wrong with him?"

"Her" Danni corrected, when the girl rolled her eyes Danni quickly moved on, "Kitkat has been getting sicker and sicker for a few weeks now, she stopped being able to walk this morning." Danni placed her on the countertop in the reception window. "I just don't know what to do."

"My mom will not see her, just so you know." _Then what good is asking?_! Danni opened her mouth to protest but was quickly interrupted. "I can help I think." Nicole reached out one hand to Kitkat's snout, inviting it to sniff. With a weak approval Kitkat pushed into her hand.

The girl's room was tiny, and filthy, clothing and dirt were strewn about the floor. The dirt seemed to come from the potted plants by the window, not just general filth, but who could be sure? Her window looked out over the forest, and judging from all the plants, the forest was slowly sneaking inside.

There was a bookshelf to her right, and Danni read a few titles: _Knowing the Danger; Migration patterns; Less than Level 6 (and Normal)_. Danni spotted these ones from the lineup quickly, because she owned them all too. Of course they had the necessary tone that Pokemon were dangerous, otherwise she could never get her hands on them in times such as these, but she was desperate for any information they could provide.

Kitkat was resting on the, relatively, clean bed. The girl was slowly bending each of Kitkat's legs in turn, to check for damage. Danni was quite good at sitting quietly and politely, but the girl sure was taking her sweet time.

Danni fretted with her level meter, a small digital device that could read the current level of any pokemon, for a moment wondering if the girl would ask for Kitkat's level. After a full year Kitkat was already level 5. Danni knew that just owning an eevee was pushing the boundary, but to be on the upper limit of a pokemon's acceptable level before she needed to be...

Danni shook her head. She was well within the law, Kitkat was a normal type, she was under level 6, and no one could possibly know that she had trained her even a little beyond basic household commands.

"Would you please hand me that book? It's brown with no title on the bottom shelf" the girl's gentle request snapped Danni away from her worry for a moment to grab the book. The cover of the book was blank as well as the spine. Danni handed it to the girl who skimmed through the pages slowly. After a moment the girl began to speak, without looking up, "eevees are really on the outer edge of an acceptable normal type."

Danni was familiar with the conversation that was about to happen. She had this conversation with every adult in her life, and every Ranger in their village. "When I picked him out, I didn't know that there are multiple evolution paths for this type. He was just cute. I just wanted a pet."

"Yea, well, that's tauroshit." the girl said casually.

Perhaps Danni was not familiar with the conversation that was about to happen afterall. "Excuse me?"

"You can't just wander into a normal pokemon dealer and get anything that evolves into a non-normal class, except flying perhaps." The girl seemed to have landed on the page she was looking for. "And you've trained him besides."

"I have _housetrained_ him only," Danni hoped that she was expressing shock, she was only feeling fear.

"I won't tell anyone, and I doubt anyone can tell who hasn't studied this," the girl raised her book slightly, "but you will have to get her up another level looks like. What level is she at now?"

"I- ah" Danni faltered. The girl lowered her book, looking at Danni directly for the first time.

"I knew she was over 3 but... well she'll need to hit the next level or she will die."

"I-I - Wha- how do you figure that?"

The girl raised the book slightly to indicate the answer. "Before the Backlash people didn't train pokemon just for fun. Pokemon have unstable bodies. They are prone to cancer and defects." The girl stopped talking and reached over to open up a thin wooden briefcase at her side. Inside were some strange vials which she began looking through. Danni was about to speak up, when the girl continued.

"Each time a pokemon 'levels-up' it is like a mini-evolution, the cellular structure is rebuilt and refreshed. This gets rid of many ailments, including cancer and cysts. As pokemon level up and evolve they reach a more stable physical form, until they are relatively safe from disease." Danni needed to take a moment to process this information fully. She had never really wondered much about why her ancestors trained pokemon, ignoring the blatant risks. Danni always assumed it was the same reason that she risked it; her Pokemon wanted to and she wanted to make her Pokemon happy.

"This is a painkiller," the girl explained as she dropped some liquid into Kitkat's mouth. "Kitkat has an ailment attacking her lungs and joints. If I had healing tech I could fix her up in a jiffy, unfortunately… Anyway, she will need to reach the next level to recover." The girl handed Danni the thick book, open to a page filled with tiny writing and charts with jagged lines.

Danni stared for a moment, but could glean no information from it. "I can't do that," she said finally, looking back up at the girl.

The girl handed Kitkat back to Danni. "If I had another option for you, I would give it." Danni's mind was scrabbling for something, anything to say to make this girl understand that she needed to fix Kitkat. Finding nothing, Danni only reached out for her friend, limp, but no longer whimpering at least. The girl frowned, and spoke quietly "Believe me, nothing deserves to die like this. If it were me I would help my friend. You chose to give a home to a Pokemon. I'm sure you catch a lot of flack for having her at all. I know after level 6 all normal type pokemon are required to be put down just like any other pokemon found within the village boundaries." The girl paused for a moment, "I _also_ know that you are the only person in town wealthy enough to afford a level meter, _and_ I know that I am good at keeping secrets."

Danni held Kitkat closely. Her breath was short and she had fallen asleep at some point during the exam. Danni looked at her feet, and scratched Kitkat behind the ear.

"Do you have your level meter? Is she really about to hit 6?"

Apprehension washed over Danni. It was illegal to deny a request to prove a pokemon's level, but ever since Kitkat had hit level four she had managed to divert the issue whenever it was brought up. "What is your name?"

"Nicole" The girl said, outstretching her hand.

Danni shook it, trying to figure out if it was a 'trustworthy handshake'. Her father always talked about 'judging a man by his handshake.' Danni couldn't tell what she was supposed to be checking for. With a deep breath, Danni used her meter to read Kitkat's level, and showed Nicole her proof. Any minute now Rangers would burst in from the window and take her friend away. It was a trick, wasn't it? To get her to reveal her pokemon as dangerous? She'd fallen for it, hadn't she?

Instead of ruining her life, Nicole placed one hand on Danni's shoulder. Danni stroked her hand down Kitkat's ears. There didn't seem to be other options. She could let Kitkat suffer and die, or she could risk getting caught with an illegally leveled pokemon. Of her two options, Danni chose to break the law.


	2. Meowth

**Chapter 2**

 **Meowth**

Katlyn had to squint to see them far off in the trees, but the telltale green and orange of a ranger's uniform was easily recognisable. They were running through the underbrush carrying something large.

She took a ball and put it in her overshirt, leaving her bag behind. The rangers were heading vaguely in the direction of the brook. Katlyn was quicker than most in the forest, the key was adaptability and reaction time. You had to jump from stone to stone, over logs, duck and weave while maintaining your pace. She hit the creek bed and crouched low. The soil was high around her, it would be hard from a ranger to notice her without being directly over the creek. For a moment Katlyn was hesitant, unsure if this is really where they were heading, but then she saw smoke up ahead.

Fall meant swarms of bug pokemon coming down from the north. That meant flamethrowers to take them out, which meant forest fires. As she got closer she started to feel the heat. The creek didn't have any immediate vegetation, so she was probably safe for the time being.

Katlyn peered over the edge of the creek, it was smoky and hard to see, but there was movement and fire. The rangers were close enough that Katlyn could hear them shouting "small nest!" and "burn the area!"

Something was coming towards her. For a split second Katlyn wondered why the rangers were using fire on a fire type pokemon. But as it approached Katlyn realized that it wasn't burning with its own flame. The smell of charred skin hit her. It was an insect, so it couldn't scream, but its motions were enough that Katlyn was sure it would be screaming if it could.

The first time she had seen something burn alive Katlyn had vomited. Today she filled with an uncontrollable rage. She needed the winds to change, to blow the smoke towards the rangers. She willed it with every fiber of her being, and somehow, miraculously, it worked. The smoke shifted between her and the rangers. She grasped the ball in her overshirt and pounced up, over the edge. The creature was nearly dead before her as she expanded the cool sphere as if by magic. With a practiced throw she struck her target and in a flash of red it was safe inside. Katlyn grabbed the ball as it shook, turned, and fell down hard into the safety of the creek. She held the ball close to her heart begging again for good fortune, and the ball was still.

Just as she was about to shove it in her pocket, she saw a girl staring from the creek bed.

Instant fear gripped her. Katlyn she did the only thing she could think to do; she grabbed the girl's wrist and took off, trying to get away from the Rangers before the girl could call out. They ran, and the girl did not start to struggle until they were well clear of the fire.

"Let go!" She said, in a high, fearful voice.

Katlyn said nothing, and ran onward, splashing in the muddy water, desperate for a solution. Could she threaten her? Could she escape?

"Did you save that pokemon?" The girl said from behind her.

Katlyn stopped short, and whirled around, grabbing the girl by the shoulders. She was close enough to see the flecks of ash stuck in the makeup around her eyes, Pale streaks of black gave away old tears, either from the smoke or the sight. "If you tell anyone what you saw…" Katlyn began, unsure if she was going for threatening or pleading. Luckily she was cut off.

"I won't tell. Did you save it?" The girl asked.

"I didn't do anything, it's fine, just forget it." Katlyn said.

"What did you do?" She was persistent, and the confidence had started to come back into her girl shrugged off Katlyn's hands and grabbed Katlyn by the shoulders instead. "Tell me."

Katlyn looked the girl up and down. She was older than Katlyn by a fair amount, black silky hair curling slightly from the heat, clothes that were not tattered and threadbare like Katlyn's. She had a hiking pack that might have seen its first hint of dirt today. "Fuck off" Wasn't what she meant to say, it just slipped out before she could think.

The girl shoved her hard into the stream. Katlyn's leg connected with a stone and shot pain through her system. "Did you save it?"

"Fine, fuck, yes. It's safe." Katlyn said, fighting back tears from the pain and embarrassment. The girl knelt down beside her and Katlyn scowled, but said nothing.

"How did you save it?" The girl asked.

"It's not really any of your business." Katlyn said, bitterly avoiding her eyes.

The girl whispered angrily, "I'm on your side here." She was pulling off the hiking pack, setting it gently on a flat stone. Katlyn saw a chance to run, but the pain from her fall had left her winded. The girl tilted her back towards Katlyn and the surprise of what she saw was enough for her to forget to breathe. There was a pokemon in the girl's bag.

"I needed to train her. I need to heal her."

"So you... you brought. Your pokemon. _To a fucking wild fire?_ " Katlyn shot up along with her voice, echoing through the forest. Immediately she regretted it, the forest was too quiet for her to scream about pokemon in it.

"Will you calm down? I needed to train her but she's too sick to battle."

"Good idea to set her on _fucking fire_." Katlyn managed a hoarse whisper this time.

"I didn't want to set her on fire you psycho." The girl whispered back.

"Do you have any idea what they do to fucking pokemon they catch?"

"I have to get her one damn level."

"You'd be lucky if they snapped her neck."

"Don't _fucking_ talk like that."

Their voices were rising steadily and this time it was Katlyn who shoved the girl down into the stream bed. She landed with a hard thud and a splash. At first katlyn thought she had caused the girl to cry but the whine was too high, it was the pokemon's high whine of pain. Katlyn only had a second to register it before she saw the fury on the other girls face, and felt her leg being kicked out from under her.

"Kit is hurt you fucking bitch." The girl shouted.

Immediately both girls looked in the direction of the fire, for fear that they would have been heard by the rangers and discovered. For a few tense minutes they listened only to the rushing water and distant cracking of trees as the fell.

After Katlyn was satisfied that she was safe she turned back to the girl. She hesitated, meeting her angry gaze, before looking away. "I didn't mean to hurt her."

The girl narrowed her eyes at Katlyn, in between checking on the pokemon in her pack. Finally she offered "You didn't hurt her, she just... is hurt. scaring her isn't helping though."

"You should put her back in her ball if she is hurt."

"You're not making any sense. Listen. If you caught a pokemon you can help me. She needs to level up, just once, she's close to it. She'll be better after that."

Katlyn furrowed her brow, trying to make sense of that. "You can make her better?" She ventured.

"Yea, I guess. I just need to train her up one level. She'll heal that way."

"How?"  
"I don't know, I was just told that it would work."

"I mean, how do you 'Level'?"

The girl looked at her for a moment, furrowing her eyebrows. She stood carefully, dripping water from her backside, and offered her hand to Katlyn. Taking it reluctantly, Katlyn allowed herself to be pulled up. "I want to give Kit some more painkillers first. Basically I trained her a lot on simple stuff, like commands, you know? But she's too old for that simple stuff now. So I thought if I could find a pokemon in the fire and just like… get a hold of one, keep it safe, and have them lose to each other on purpose?" The girl seemed unsure of herself, but it was hard to tell. She turned away in order to head back onto the dry trail. "It's supposed to be better training to actually spar, you know?"

Katlyn did not know. "I've not got any of them out of their balls since I got them, because I don't know how to heal them. I don't know if that leveling thing will work."

"I think it will. I think that Nicole is honest. Oh, ah, sorry, Nicole is my friend. She knows how to heal them."

Katlyn stopped dead in her tracks. A true healer? It wasn't possible. She'd heard about the technology once or twice before, it was apparently so easy that it only took moments. but nothing of that tech survived.

Katlyn looked again at the Eevee. If healing was so easy, why was this one so sick? And who exactly was this girl who so conveniently had access to this tech?

By Arceus it was a tempting offer.

In the silence of Katlyn's internal debate Danni interjected, "Come with me and I'll introduce you-"

Katlyn immediately bristled. "Where. Come with you where?"

Danni hesitated for a moment. "To- to Nicole's house. In town."

No. Nope nope. This was a trap. Towns were dangerous. Towns were where you get caught and jailed and your pokemon, your lifes work, gets murdered. Who was this prissy rich girl anyway? One eevee was not a trustworthy case.

Katlyn reached into her own bag, keeping her expression calm. She could not, would not, leave her forest. Yet, the idea of healing was not easily dismissed.

"You're going to bring her here instead."

"Why should I do that?"

Katlyn moved quicker than her own thoughts. Tossing a ball out, striking true. The eevee glowed with red and then with an electronic snap, was caught. Katlyn grabbed the backpack in entirety and retreated up the bank of the river and onto a small stone outcrop.

Danni didn't seem to have caught on until it was too late. She took a step into the icy water, and stopped. Her mouth opened and shut, at a loss for words.

"Bring her here." Katlyn repeated.

Tears were welling up in Danni's eyes, still floundering for anything to say. Would she yell? Or scream?

Katlyn's thoughts caught up to her in that moment. She didn't know what the rest of the plan was yet. She actually didn't think this much of the plan had been all that good. She was just as vulnerable in the forest as she was in a town. Having more pokemon was just more damning evidence. Her arms tensed up. How stupid would she look if she apologized and gave it back? That wasn't an option was it? Katlyn was starting to panic with questions.

"I'll give it back when mine are healed," She shouted a little squeakier than she had intended. Surely the girl was going to see through it all, bring Katlyn crashing down to justice.

But she only began to cry, nodding frantically, and ran away.

Katlyn watched her go, stuck to the rocks and beginning to shiver. She needed distance, if the girl was any kind of smart she'd come back with a ranger crew and then Katlyn would be done for. Her legs didn't want to run though. She stared straight ahead, walking and holding the backpack to her chest.

Katlyn had been sleeping in a small bus half buried in the ground. A few of the windows were still intact, and the rest had been patched over with wood, or sheet metal, or plastic bags she had found. She knew it was called a bus, because her grandfather owned one that he'd converted to a shed. The floor of hers was at a steep angle, but she had managed to rip up the seats so she could easily use the metal frames as a ladder on the way in. All the cushions had been piled in the bottom for a makeshift bed. The roof was solid, so she hadn't worried much about the snow all winter.

Sitting on the edge of one of the metal frames, Katlyn pulled the pokeball out from the backpack, and another out from her own pack. They both looked the same, so Katlyn made sure to put the Eevee (Kit?) apart from the others.

Not counting Kit, there were 4 balls. She's never met any of the inhabitants but one; A meowth that someone in her class kept as a pet. Not everyone in the town saw eye to eye with the viability of Pokemon as pets, so one day a group of teenagers had cornered the poor thing and scared it into the woods.

Once a pokemon, even a normal type, hits the wild without its owner it's considered a wild pokemon. It was sighted close to their house, so her father took the kids out to hunt it. He said it was only technically wild, it was still a low level normal type, so it was safe for them to practice their ranger training on. They were in parties of two and Katlyn was with her father.

Katlyn found the meowth, it was just a little kitten. Her father was looking the other way, and Katlyn called him over, because that's what rangers are supposed to do.

Katlyn's grandfather had given her a pokeball when she was little. He told her to keep it hidden. He's been around before The Fall, he'd owned pokemon once.

When her father levelled the shotgun at it Katlyn jumped out on impulse. Her father had tried to pull the shot, hitting the Meowth in the hind leg rather than the head. Katlyn remembered running with it in her arms, but never remembered picking it up. She remembered her first night in a dark forest, but never remembered getting the pokeball from home.

Katlyn sighed, straightening the balls on their makeshift stands. She was making a lot of bad life choices.


	3. Rattata

**Chapter 3**

 **Rattatta**

Nicole strained against her mother's old oak cabinet. From around the edge she could just see the small gray-purple tail, motionless. With one final push the cabinet grudgingly gave up it's position, shaking the dishes inside. In the glue trap the rodent had stopped its struggle. Nicole knelt down and inspected it closely. The tiny body was faintly quivering, alive.

At her kitchen sink she carefully removed the mouse from the trap, stealing glances at the clock. With a practiced hand she separated its fur from the glue, leaving only small patches of white and gray fur behind. Once the creature was free she carefully wrapped it in a towel and ran upstairs. With a final glance out her bedroom door, Nicole shut and locked it.

The power had been out for two days now, so her window had to stay open for light. Haphazard shelving surrounded the window, and all available space was covered in wild plants. Her room was small, her bed was unmade and pushed against her desk.

Nicole reached under her bed and retrieved a thin wooden box, flinging it open to reveal roughly packed fabrics separating various glass vials. The vials were labelled in neat handwriting. Nicole removed Pain Relief (Low-Dose), and Poison Cure (Mousetrap) and filled two tiny glass droppers with a portion of the contents.

This time she was confident in her medicine. There had been plenty of opportunities to perfect the poison cure, this time she had it right. Forcing the dropper down the white throat of the mouse, Nicole squeezed the contents out. No chance for it to cough it up this time. No wasted time pushing the cabinet back, no wasted seconds fumbling with still stuck fur, no poison leeching back in from improperly removed glue. This time Nicole was precise.

But its breathing wasn't steadying.

Nicole was ready for that, she had a failsafe. A strong antidote and steroid, mixed together in a simple solution, ready to be administered. Nicole readied another dropper and dripped a carefully measured amount down the mouse's throat.

Nicole waited, she had seen the improvement instantly on her other patients… patient. She'd seen instant improvement in Kitkat, the only pokemon she'd ever successfully treated before. But it _had_ been instant.

Its breathing was shallower.

Nicole could feel the heat swell up in her sinuses, pressure on her eyes. She had done everything right this time.

Her hands were steady, just like her mother's always were. She didn't spill one drop of the medicine. She always gave extra, every time, even when her supplies were running low. If she could just save this one just one for her own, she could get more on her own. She just needed a partner.

In the end, she had time to push her mother's cabinet back into place before she buried it in the forest.

Dusk was falling as she walked back home. Clouds stretched gold and purple over the sky in billowy tiny town had been peppered with orange lanterns, left over from the Spring Festival, giving the effect of many suns setting throughout the village. Once, a long time ago, this street had been cleanly paved all the way down to the coast, miles from the village. Today weeds and grasses grew up from the cracks and potholes even in the nice part of town. Sometimes Nicole would walk the old road path into the forest as far as she could follow. She was always amazed at just how little there was before the trees and mud hid it completely. After half a mile she only ever left with the occasional metal traffic sign, and then after a mile, nothing. Moving towards town square had almost the opposite effect. Each spring the road maintenance crew threw gravel and dirt in the new potholes and pulled all the weeds from the cracks.

The streets were empty and Nicole could smell smoke on the air. The smoke mingled with the smell of meltwater, confusing spring and fall scents together. In the fall her go to fantasy was water themed, canoeing down a river in the wild, fishing for goldeen. In the Spring she thought about soil and plants, an herb garden attached to a mossy forest cottage, surrounded by deerling and oddish. The scents crashed together, maybe her cottage was on the bank of a river. A willow tree growing from the gardens.

A heavy footfall pulled her out of the daydream before it could form properly, and she heard shouting behind her. Annoyed at the interruption Nicole turned.

Danni was running towards her, out of breath. She stank of smoke and was covered in mud. Danni fell hysterically into Nicole's arms. Nicole embraced her out of reflex, but was quickly overwhelmed with her own social ineptitude and started looking around for someone to replace her. There was no one. Nicole held Danni at arms length and opened her mouth to ask a question, but didn't have one ready.

Fortunately Danni began, unprompted. Through a few strangled gasps Danni eked out the priority bits of story. The forest fire, the strange girl, the theft of Kitkat. Before Nicole had time to process it all they were running to her house.

Nicole had always felt that drawing pull to go. She didn't know where she would go, or how to go, or why she was going. Every time she sat down to plan what she would need she came up feeling foolish. She wasn't unhappy, she didn't want to punish her family for anything by running away. She didn't have a destination. She was just in love with the idea of movement. Running off into a dark forest was a fantasy so familiar that Nicole didn't need time to come to terms with it. She'd already packed a go-bag.

Just as quickly they were gone, out into the forest, unplanned.

The reality hit her fast and hard. Danni had tried to lead back to the streambed, and Nicole had made a terrible assumption that the natural state of any young lady was memorizing trees and stones and forest pathways. Danni stopped suddenly, looked around, and began keening out tears like an absolute banshee. Adrenaline ebbed away and in its wake darkness pressed inward. Her legs burned. She was cut across her hands and face from wayward branches. She hadn't accounted for the cold when she had imagined her escape from her warm bedroom window.

When had all this happened, exactly? When did time move from slow pools to waterfalls? She hadn't had the chance to process it all. Now, as the flow of it crashed down and pooled again at her feet, she was lost. How did that happen?

 _Bearings then. That's the most important. Focus._ Nicole focused.

It was nighttime, she hadn't noticed how late it had gotten because the moon was so full and so low. The woods were positively bright. They were not near a streambed, but rather a patch of woods, the same as any other. Danni was crying, loudly.

Nicole kneeled down with both hands on Danni's shoulders. "We're fine. We'll find her." It was more of a command than a reassurance. Danni had her face buried in her hands, but she fell silent. Nicole kept one hand on her shoulder, and took another look around.

Trees, tall oaks, tall pines. They'd been duped by the light underbrush into moving faster than they should have. The moon was casting orange light through the tree trunks. In another forest, it would have been obscured and easier to see when it was higher up. But in this forest the underbrush was barely more than ferns, the middleview only thick tree trunks. Stones jutted up here and there, old foundations or fallen structures. They cut the tree cover with neat squares, slowly being eroded by groundcover.

Nicole had been here before. This part of the forest was an old part of town, left to the forest years before she was born, and only revisited last year in a controlled fire. Nicole shut her eyes. Had they kept a straight path, or had they gotten turned around? It had felt like a straight line, but it had also felt like 3 seconds worth of time.

 _No, wait, this is the wrong line of reasoning_. Nicole gripped Danni's shoulder tighter as she stood up. She could see the moon at a low angle, so there was a clearing in that direction. That was the right choice.

"Come on, I know where we are" Nicole lied.

Danni stuttered something, unintelligible with panic.

"I come out here all the time." Nicole said, guessing wildly. Danni stood, wiping her face with the butt of her palm. She held Nicole's arm.

This time they were slow and careful, Nicole keeping an eye on the forest for signs of a trail, or a landmark. Ahead the trees breached with each step forward, thinning to a clearing. With each step the moon grew fuller, and closer, lower, beautiful. Nicole looked up to the glow from the moon and to her surprise, saw two lights before her. Her shoulders tensed. The creeping sensation up the back of her spine was a feeling she had not known since she was much younger. They was not alone out here. A twig cracked in the distance. Ahead the moon waned to crescent and waxed again. It spoke to Nicole, urged her stomach over in a flip and rumbled up from the core of the earth.

' **You are not ready.'**

Two moons before her blinked. She was in a clearing and the soil rise up to meet her tailbone, cracking through her teeth and making the world dark. The first to return were the pinpricks of stars, wavering and watering in the night sky. Nicole blinked away the tears. The stars were as solid as they had always been, and the earth flipped over her head. Nicole threw up in the ash soil, kneeling against the ground.

 _I'm losing my mind._ Nicole heaved again into the ground. Slowly her senses returned, smell at the forefront, acidity and bile urging her back. Her fingers sank into the soft ash ground leaving smooth prints in her wake as the crawled in reverse. The silence of wind, the stars above her, and in front of those…

She was fixated on the eyes again, Perfectly round, two full moons filled with a flickering oil lantern. Yet, with new experience to her name Nicole was able to break away. Or perhaps it wasn't interested in her. She rose one hand to block the eyes and saw, for the first time yet, the wisp of ash fur, the breccia of teeth, claws sunk into the ground. A sly mix of fox and moth, Large powdery wings, massive fronds of antennae, on a sleek hunter's body, perfectly still but for its twitching tail, larger than Nicole's understanding. Danni was in its gaze, her eyes and mouth shining with that lantern light, hovering over the ruined soil.

' **This one is.'**

Danni stepped down from the air, moving forward to its shoulder. Her dress black and pristine once again. Around her Nicole began to see the other pristine dresses, all blacks and purples, all looking to the Moon with that same lantern stare. They rose up from the soil in the shape of pokemon, and slowly changed into flowing fabrics and foggy auras.

Nicole willed herself to act and fell short, stuck to the soil by her own terror. Another step forward brought Danni farther away, leaving Nicole to be filthy and useless. Something touched her leg and Nicole skittered farther back, away, unable to scream yet. But the touch was solid, and warm, and wholly uninterested in her. An Eevee had used her as a springboard soaring forward and colliding with a soft smack into the shoulder of The Moon.

It stopped then and swept its unblinking gaze around, equally observing everything in between Danni and the Eevee. They stared at one another.

' **You are Ready.'**

The eevee screeched and tackled again, eyes screwed shut, placing itself between Danni and The Moon.

' **You are. It is safe.'**

The eyes lowered to the ground, equal with Kitkats face, noses almost touching. Their sizes so starkly different the true moon may well have just fallen upon the poor creature, but its eyes stayed closed tight, and it screeched once again.

"Stop!" Nicole's lungs shrunk in defiance of her own voice. The gaze fell upon her now and she regretted finding her courage. Then, the gaze moved on. Nicole followed its sweeping eyes and found a small scrap of fabric, Standing to face The Moon confidently. More souls rose from the soil, the wind urging a tense silence. Finally, the booming voice returned.

' **Little One, you are foolish.'**

Waning to half, then cresent then waxing back to full, The Moon blinked and turned away. With it the spirits followed, wafting towards its lighted gaze into the forest beyond, away from the village. Nicole watched as the tiny fabric did not follow. For a moment it stood and watched and then it fell gently to the ground. Behind her Nicole could hear Danni sobbing, an eevee's delighted trills, an unfamiliar voice out of breath and scared, but Nicole was already running towards the fabric.

It had fallen to a puff of ash and its fabric scattered like moths when Nicole approached. A rattata, golden and tan, breathing shallowly into the ground. Gently Nicole picked it up, its fur was damp and slightly sticky. Its eyes could not focus, nor could they close fully. Nicole knew these symptoms. Mousetrap poison.

She frantically threw open her kit and found her poison cure. Lifting it up, and feeding it a few drops. Its weight was familiar, the way it's fur felt, the shallow breathing.

Nicole started to cry even as the little mouse began to breath easily, to shut its eyes for sleep. Its fur remained touched by death in browns and golds rather than purple and white. This was her patient. She'd lost him in the afternoon and been given another chance.


End file.
